


Battle After War

by A_regrettable_choice_of_words



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Pidge has a quick appearance, Post-Voltron, Pre-Relationship, mostly keith and lance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 15:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11831913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_regrettable_choice_of_words/pseuds/A_regrettable_choice_of_words
Summary: The Empire has been defeated and there are no major threats in the universe. Voltron is no longer needed and everyone has moved on in their own way. Except Lance. He had yet to find something to give his life meaning. Until he gets a chance to fight again.





	Battle After War

The universe was safe. And with the newfound safety of the universe came the lack of need for a giant robotic weapon. And its paladins. 

 

Hunk had opted to stay on the Balmera and help rebuild their society without the Galra. After visiting his family of course. Pidge had been reunited with their brother and father out in space and had taken them back to Earth where they happily lived with their mother. They had also gone on to work for NASA after having learned so much about alien technology they were able to unlock the secrets of out-of-galaxy travel for the people of Earth. 

 

Earth was technically an ally in the organisation for peace that Allura had set up, but it didn’t get much in the way of alien visitors. Afterall, most of the planet had just learned that aliens existed a few months ago. They weren’t quite ready to be actively involved in out of this world politics. 

 

Shiro had opted to stay with Allura and Coran as they travelled the universe for diplomatic planetary relations- that is to say, creating peace treaties with as many planets as they could in order to avoid anything like the disaster with the Galra empire ever happening again. 

 

Keith had joined the Blade of Marmora as a fighter because while the universe was basically safe, not everyone who had supported the Empire was gone. The problem just wasn’t large-scale enough to need Voltron. 

 

The Blade didn’t deal with much in the way of diplomatic things due to the fact that most of the newly free planets would turn them away on sight, though they still helped in any way the could. They were slowly gaining the trust of the universe, one planet at a time. 

 

And Lance? Lance had gone back home. Because that was what he had wanted from all this wasn’t it? To go back home?

 

It was great at first, the reunion, happy and sad tears, seeing people he had missed for so long. Seven years. People he hadn’t seen in  _ seven years. _

 

Then he started to notice things. How much he had missed, and how much he had changed. He had missed his four little siblings growing up, he had missed his two older siblings moving out, having children. They had changed so much. Not one of them was the same person he remembered from so long ago. The youngest, Miguel, had been three when he left. The baby of the family that Lance was going to help raise. Who he was going to babysit and teach to ride a bike. Now he had missed all of that and instead he found a ten year old red belt in karate who didn’t even know who he was. 

 

He had missed all of Jaidyn and Gavin’s dance recitals and all of Mora’s soccer games. And the longer he stayed the more he realized how much he no longer fit in. He had missed such a big part of all their lives, but they had missed just as big a chunk of his life. They had missed him training and fighting and discovering new worlds. They had missed him becoming a soldier. 

 

Lance found that he could no longer keep up with the rapid fire Spanish that was commonly spoken around the house and was too often asking people to repeat themselves for his benefit. After hardly speaking the language and not hearing it at all for so long he was a little rusty and little translations slipped his mind. And it made him feel more isolated every time it happened. 

 

He found some sort of peace sitting out on the beach but found that that wasn’t even the same. Sure, the beach didn’t look much different from his memories or days as a child but it didn’t give him the same feeling it did before. It used to make him feel completely at peace, invulnerable. Safe. 

 

Now he found himself jumpy, ready to fight at any given moment. He couldn’t swim at night for fear of panic attacks caused by not knowing what was lurking beneath him. Logically, he knew that nothing would hurt him here, it was shallow water that he had swam in a million times; but that didn’t stop his mind from drifting or his thoughts from spiralling. 

 

And don’t even get him started on the nightmares. Nearly every night he was plagued with bad dreams and memories of his fight against the Galra Empire and only able to wake up once his dream self was nearing death. He hardly slept and when he did sleep without nightmares it would be dreams that he was back on the ship with the rest of Voltron by his side, getting along, only to be woken up and torn away from it. 

 

There didn’t seem to be an upside to being here. He had thought that once he was home that the homesickness would disappear. That he would be happy to live life like he could’ve before. But now when he thought of the home he was missing he thought of battling side by side in perfect sync, of laughing in the common room and choking down some of that god-awful goo after running out of the stash of food they would’ve gained from the last planet. Instead of thinking of his relatives he thought of his space family, of Hunk and Pidge who he met at the garrison, of Shiro and his pre-battle pep talks, of Allura and Coran teaching them Altaen customs and giving outdated advice about other planets. And of Keith, whom he hadn’t gotten along with at first, but who grew on him the more he got to know the other boy. 

 

He’s only been home for three months and he already felt so out of place. He couldn’t imagine continuing his life like this. He couldn’t just pretend it had never happened and go back to school to learn things he already knew to get a job that would feel so bland no matter what it was compared to the life he had finished living. 

 

But for now Lance did the only thing he could do- the thing he had been doing every night since returning to Veradero Beach. Sitting in the sand and staring out at the waves. He had tried surfing a couple times but found that the waves no longer felt steady under his feet, that shifting naturally to make himself at home on the board no longer worked. And once it got dark he couldn’t bring himself to step into the water. So he was left to sit against a tree on the sand and stare at the ever changing water. 

 

This night was no different than any of the others; until it was. 

 

A familiar voice sounded behind him and for a moment Lance thought he was hearing things, caught in another memory, until he turned around. There, in casual alien attire, was Keith Kogane, walking bare foot, carrying his shoes in his hand, toward Lance. 

 

For a moment, Lance could hardly breathe. Hardly move. Then, before his brain had a chance to catch up, he was up and running towards Keith with open arms, enveloping him in a hug. Keith chuckled a little and hugged back, leaning into the friendly touch. 

  
  


Lance was the first person that Keith had come to see on his impromptu break from the Blade. He didn’t know quite what was missing from his life there but he wasn’t as happy as he was with Voltron, so the figured that he could visit the team and see if they could help him. 

 

The moment he saw Lance sitting on the beach he knew. He knew exactly what was missing and what he needed to fix it. It was Lance. His loud and cheerful presence beside him both in the comfort of everyday life and in battle. Even when the blue boy was taking a sniper position Keith could feel his presence watching his back. But he could never ask the blue eyed boy to leave his family again. That could possibly be the worst thing he could do and might even be unforgivable. So he wouldn’t. He would enjoy his time here and go see everyone else. Just like he planned. 

 

Keith was almost surprised when Lance hugged him. Sure Lance was a very tactile person, but he had been with no one but the Blade for three months now and he was feeling a little touch- starved. As he soon learned, Galra didn’t really do casual touches. They didn’t pat you on the back or tap your shoulder. They didn’t high five or handshake or anything of the sort. So really the only time Keith had been touched by another living being in the past three months was when he was fighting. 

 

And he didn’t realize how much he missed this. He let out a sigh of relief as he wrapped his arms around Lance with a soft smile. 

  
  


Lance held onto him for a minute, shoulders shaking. When he pulled back he didn’t try to hide the tears pouring down his face. 

 

“Keith,” he gasped the other’s name as if it were a lifeline. He pulled Keith in for another hug, and the new Mamorite, seeing Lance’s distress, held onto him tightly as the other babbled into his ear. “Keith, Keith, you’re here, you’re really here, Dios Mio, Keith, Keith,” Said boy squeezed the ex blue paladin tighter, seemingly the only thing holding him together. 

 

After longer than Lance would’ve liked to admit he hiccupped a couple times, calming himself down long enough to talk to his friend. 

 

“I can’t believe you’re here, sorry for breaking down on you like that, what are you doing here?” Lance spat out in one long stream of words. 

 

Keith smiled a little bit. “I came to visit everyone, are you okay?” Straight to the point, as always. And as Lance had learned to be with Keith, he was honest.

 

“Not really. I mean, better now that you’re here, but I can’t- I don’t- I’m not just some boy from Cuba anymore. And I can’t be again. I thought I would be happy here but I’m not. Why am I not happy here? This was what I fought to save for god’s sake! Why can’t I be happy here? Why don’t I know these people, and why don’t they know me?” Lance was growing hysterical again as he spoke though Keith was able to calm him down with a soothing hand rubbing circles into his back. 

 

“Lance, you’re not the same person you were when you left, and they aren’t either. You’ll have to get to know them again before you can be happy here.” Keith was doing his best to give Shiro-like advice rather than telling- no begging Lance to join him in the Blade. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Lance breathed out and continued before Keith could ask what for. “You just came to visit and I’m already dumping my emotional crap on you,” Lance gave a slight sad laugh. “You must think I’m pretty pathetic here huh? With you off continuing to protect the universe from harm?” 

 

The question was meant to be rhetorical but Keith answered anyway. “You’re not pathetic Lance. You’re unhappy. But I hope I can change that for the day I’m here. Sorry for arriving at night by the way, I’m landed nearby and I didn’t have any sort of clock for here to tell me when I was arriving,” Keith felt the need to explain why he had showed up at nearly one in the morning if he was guessing correctly. 

 

Lance smiled and told him it was okay before proceeding let the other part of what Keith said go unanswered. Keith would be leaving tomorrow to see Pidge the their family before leaving Earth altogether to see the rest of his former team. His current family. He had told Lance all of this while the two sat and stared at the ocean together, side by side, shoulders pressed together to remind the other, and themselves that they weren’t alone. 

 

The longer they sat and stared in silence the more Lance thought. This was his out. He could leave tomorrow and go back into space. Of course he wouldn’t be getting back the same life, but it was something he could see himself content doing. He wondered if he could join the Blade of Marmora or if they only let in members of Galran heritage. If not, he supposed he could roam with Shiro and the Alteans, or stay on the Balmera with Hunk. Though neither of those options sounded quite as appealing as staying with Keith. 

 

Honestly, Lance had developed a crush on Keith long ago that had grown a lot from where it started, though he couldn’t bring himself to tell the Red Paladin about it at the time purely because they wouldn’t have had time for a relationship. Everything was always so hectic all the time that Lance never really had the chance to express his feelings. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. And they were apart and living on different ends of the universe. But now, now he could run away with Keith. Even if the other didn’t love him back they could still fight together, be friends. Away from Earth and everything so scarily similar to how it was before their lives changed forever. 

 

Lance had invited Keith to stay the night inside rather than in his cloaked ship and as they were getting up Lanced blurted out something before he could stop himself. “Take me with you.”

 

It sounded more like a desperate plea than a demand or friendly request. “Are you sure? You won’t be able to come back for a long time.” Keith was taken aback. He had never expected Lance to want to come with him. No matter how out of place he felt here, he was with his family. The one Keith had heard so much about in space and how he missed them. Was Lance really willing to give that up again?

 

“I’m sure. This time I’ll say goodbye to everyone. I won’t have strings hanging. I just, I don’t want to live a normal life here, I can’t do that anymore, please, please, let me come with you.” Lance had grabbed the sleeve of his alien garb and was holding it tightly, as if afraid Keith would flee at the mention of taking the blue fighter with him. 

 

And just as Lance was unable to keep himself from asking, Keith was unable to deny him. “We leave tomorrow, make sure you have everything you want.” The smile that Lance gave Keith then was the happiest smile he had seen on the cuban since he arrived back on Earth. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Lance had packed everything he wanted in a dufflebag that night before he and Keith got some shuteye in the guest room-turned-Lance’s-bedroom that night. Over breakfast that morning he introduced Keith to the family and announced that he would no longer be staying on Earth, that Space was his home now and that he couldn’t stay here, no matter how much he loved them. 

 

During the goodbyes Keith stood awkwardly to the side as Lance’s mother hugged him and quietly sobbed into his shoulder. “My boy,” she said in English, likely having picked up on the fact that Lance’s Spanish was rusty at best, “ I’ll miss you so much, but I know you’ll be happier out there. You can’t be cooped up here anymore.” She parted the hug to look her son in the eye. “Take care of yourself, there’s always a place here if you need it.” Her next words were in Spanish but they were words that Lance could never forget. That Keith didn’t need to know to understand. “Te quiero.”  _ I love you. _

 

Lance repeated the words back to his mother then to all of his siblings as he had called them all there for his goodbye, and twice more to his mother, “Te quiero, Mama, te quiero,” before turning to walk out the door just ahead of Keith. 

 

Keith was stopped for a moment by Mrs. McClain before he could cross the threshold to the porch. “It was nice to meet you, Keith. Know that there’s always a place for you here too, should you ever need it. Take care of my boy for me,” the woman requested with a tear-filled smile that the half galran couldn’t refuse. 

 

“I will,” he promised. She pulled Keith in for a hug before shooing him out the door to catch up with Lance who was slowly moving down the driveway, afraid to look back or stop. 

 

This was likely the last time he would see his home for a long, long time. 

  
  


\---

  
  


They had gone to see Pidge and Matt before they left the planet. Matt seemed happy teaching at the Garrison about space travel, saying that he had had enough adventure for his lifetime. Neither Lance nor Keith could sympathize with that but smiled and congratulated him on the teaching position regardless. 

 

Pidge had long since given NASA the information they needed to travel further from Earth than any human ship had ever gone and was currently helping build the new ship along with communication devices that could reach across several galaxies. 

 

That last one was a work in progress but Pidge promised that once it was working that they would find a way to get them copies of it for personal use. They hadn’t been at all surprised that Lance was going with Keith to join the Blade, which had started letting in members of non-Galra heritage after the war ended. In fact, they seemed surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. Their parting words to the pair after their goodbyes had been “And play safe boys, use protection!” 

 

Both Lance and Keith’s faces lit up bright red as they refused to look at each other for the next minute or so until they got back to the ship. 

 

And for the second time in his life, Lance saw Earth fading in the distance behind him and smiled. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I know this doesn't end with the two officially getting together but it's hinted at and I like to think that eventually they did. I might do an epilogue if this is received well that shows the team even further down the path of life.


End file.
